Knowledge formulation in the health domain

Abstract Developments in knowledge-based systems and information and communications technology (ICT) occupy increasingly important positions in the health domain. The advent of ICT has enabled “big data” analytics that emphasize leveraging large, complex datasets to manage population health, drive down disease rates, and control costs. Moreover, knowledge formulation, as well as the growth and application of ICT-supported knowledge-based systems, has important implications for the practice of medicine, healthcare distribution, evidence-based health policy making, and professional research agendas. A conceptual analytical framework is presented that encompasses different aspects of knowledge formulation based on semiotics-focused interdependencies. Semiotics is normative, bounded by epistemic, and cultural contexts and provides the foundation for ontology development. Knowledge formulation depends on ontologies to provide repositories for formal specifications of the meanings of symbols delineated by semiotics. Accordingly, the framework posits and addresses semiotics-related pragmatics through two kinds of paradigms: (1) a model-based analytics paradigm that reflects the needs of health researchers and (2) a heuristics-based analytics paradigm that is appropriate for medical staff, patients, and other nonresearch-oriented end-user communities. The framework supports data democratization through the operationalization of these paradigms.